About a month ago, Time Warner Cable sent a letter indicating that they wanted to upgrade my modem so that I could take advantage of faster speeds available on their network. The letter said that there would be no additional charge, and all that I had to do was go to their web site and request the new modem, and it would be shipped. I could then install the new modem and return the old modem, at my convenience. I signed up for the new modem, received it, installed it, and returned the old modem in the box that the new one arrived in, using the pre-paid FedEx supplied. All seemed well enough.
The day the new modem was installed, the built-in wireless for the modem would not function. I called support, and they walked me through getting it to work, and all seemed well again. The next day, the wireless didn’t work again. I called, and they indicated that somebody forgot to turn it on. That seemed rather curious to me at the time, but they turned it on and all seemed well and good again. Indeed, all was well and good for over a month.
Today, I received a bill from Time Warner Cable showing an increase of $11.19; I was not amused. The bill showed a new additional charge of $7.99 for HomeWiFi, and a partial month charge for the same of $3.20. I was a bit confused why I was suddenly being charged for HomeWiFi, when there had been WiFi in my home for many years, without charge. The switch/router I had purchased long ago supplied this to me quite effectively, and they had never charged me before.
Contacting Time Warner Cable, their customer service representative attempted to explain that I was being charged for WiFi because they were supplying this service to me now. She also began to explain how modems work, but I objected. Explaining that I had worked in Information Technology for more than 20 years, I was very much aware that they were not providing any sort of anything of the sort. The modem they had supplied was equipped with WiFi, and I was paying an Internet Modem Lease of $3.99 for the use of that modem; further, I expected full use of a modem I was leasing, without additional charge! In addition, I had never been informed of any sort of fee associated with using the WiFi built in to the model I was leasing from them, and that if they insisted on charging me an additional fee for full use of the modem, then they could disconnect the WiFi and I would return to using my own personal switch/router instead.
In the end, Time Warner Cable did roll back the fees, and ensured me that I would not be charged for HomeWiFi any longer. However, I cannot help but believe there is nefarious intent behind their effort to charge for a service that clearly are not providing; indeed, I am sure they are probably raking in quite a bit of money from folks that do not really understand technology enough to argue against this charge. I guess some companies will do anything do recoup losses incurred by the intrusion of Google Fiber. Our neighborhood is slated for the summer, and it can’t come soon enough.
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